


Take My Hand

by LittleSixx



Series: Together [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Character Study, Coda, Gen, Hurt Steve Rogers, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Relationships, M/M, Memory Related, Personal Growth, Pre-Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Repressed Memories, Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSixx/pseuds/LittleSixx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An "Age of Ultron" Easter Egg. A very powerful memory is triggered in the heat of the final battle. Cap's holding onto a woman as he's hanging off the edge of a flying city, but his mind is taken back to 1945.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a quickie character study inspired by this Chris Evans tweet: https://twitter.com/ChrisEvans/status/611292587979329537. The poem referenced is by Rumi. It's mostly coda. Two of the previous three were heavily Stony, and there's just a teensy bit of a reference to it at the end of the ficlet.

“The city is flying,” Cap heard Hawkeye sigh over comms. It was a battle, and Captain America was prepared. He fit seamlessly into the team, calling orders when needed, but everyone seemed to coordinate subconsciously. That’s how they did things: together.

Cap set himself the task of guarding the eastern perimeter, city shadows cloaking the area as the sun set. The lone strip of remaining light shone on a bridge about to collapse. Cap ran toward a woman’s sudden cries of,

“HELP! HELP!!” She shouted from the front seat of a convertible, teetering on the edge. Cap managed to get hold of the car’s chassis, but the woman screamed again as the car fell forward, the back bumper coming off in Cap’s hands. He breathed heavily, momentarily stunned as the vehicle plummeted toward the ground at least a mile below.

There was a feeling then, a dark storm cloud peeking out from the recesses of his psyche.

Thor swooped up from beneath the city, Mjolnir whirred through the air and Steve physically shook the thought from his mind as another scream pierced the air. The red convertible continued its dive and Cap heard something creak behind him.

Familiarity. Superhero work.

He spun, rear bumper in hand, and drilled it through the center of the Ultrobot. He threw it to the side a good twenty feet away and glanced again over the bridge’s edge to see Thor waiting for him. Standing shotgun, Thor gripped the forearm of the driver and looked to Cap who nodded. A glance back at the lady, Thor nodded and tossed her upward, godly strength propelled her against gravity, but Cap realized it wouldn’t be enough.

He hopped off the edge and hung onto some of the broken pavement poking out of the city’s side, catching the woman’s hand just in time.

“I’ve got you!” He said.

But then, it wasn’t what he said. Instead,

“Take my hand!” It was cold—chillier than it had been the moment before. Snow fell, but it was summer. Cap wasn’t holding onto jutted-out pavement, but Steve Rogers hung onto the door of a train.

**.oOo.**

In their early days at Avengers Tower, trust had to be earned. Banner shared with Steve a poem, and its poignancy was not lost.

_This being human is a guest house.  
Every morning a new arrival._

_A joy, a depression, a meanness,_  
some momentary awareness comes  
as an unexpected visitor.

 _Welcome and entertain them all!_  
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,  
who violently sweep your house  
empty of its furniture,  
still, treat each guest honorably.  
He may be clearing you out  
for some new delight.

_The dark thought, the shame, the malice.  
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in._

_Be grateful for whatever comes._  
because each has been sent  
as a guide from beyond.

**.oOo. **

Were mindset a guest house, this moment came like a flash flood. Without warning, it filled Steve with a numbing cold. Slowly, it rose from his toes to throat where it suffocated him until he was completely engulfed by the watery crash of memory.

He could see Bucky, then. Steve could feel the distinctly metallic chill of the metal door against his cheek as he stretched his arm out again for Bucky to grab hold. Bucky tried but couldn’t manage to get his hand more than three inches from the door handle he clung to.

The handle began to wobble, just the slightest bit, and Steve felt he had one more shot. But he knew he didn’t. It was in vain. Bucky almost reached him that last time. That last swing from handlebar to hand was so close Steve felt the pads of Bucky’s fingers skim off his glove before his best friend shrank into the distance of the mountains below.

Steve clung to the train’s door, moving at too many miles per hour to keep his eyes on Bucky’s supposedly final resting place.

It was confusing as he rested his forehead on the metal door, because the pine trees below, covered in snow, looked exactly like Christmas. Instead of unwrapping presents and Bucky warming his hands by the fire, he was wrapped in the wintery folds of death.

If Steve was a guest house, he had several visitors in those moments. A joy at the hope he could save Bucky this time. A meanness toward Red Skull, Hydra, and every Nazi bastard who’d put him in that position. But he saw the depression, the defeat in Bucky’s eyes—his last expression, and it’d be permanently etched on his features for seventy years.

The crowd of sorrows poured in, then. The dark thought. _I didn’t think I’d be there to see the end of the line._ He could end his life and end his misery. Killing everything in sight may have done just as well. The shame at being able to save everyone _but_ Bucky, the one person he cared about more than anything. More than the war, more than good intentions. God, the malice he felt burning hot in his veins instead of blood. He didn’t just want to kill, he needed to kill and his muscles tightened at the thought.

But as quickly as the flash storm came, it was gone, and he was alone, hanging onto his purpose more than he clung to the train door.

Tremors of sadness swam beneath his skin and Steve allowed himself a second of misery. Just a second.

**.oOo. **

“Just a second,” Cap told the woman, clinging to him for dear life. He pulled her up and she climbed—actually climbed him—up and onto the city’s edge before running as quickly as she could toward solid (if levitating) ground.

Steve pulled himself up and over before collapsing on the ground. While the memory flood was gone, its effects lingered. The dam he’d crafted to block out thoughts of Bucky and his first war during battle was decimated. Once again, he held someone’s life in his hand as they trusted him to pull them to safety. It felt good to be successful this time, so Steve allowed himself a second of contentment.

Just one second.

Captain America knew better. Captain America knew there were no spare seconds in battle. There are no moments allowed for weakness or for clarity or for any intention other than **to win**. Steve Rogers, though, he didn’t quite know that. Captain America was a symbol, but Steve Rogers was a guest house. While he was saying goodbye to his visitors, Ultron’s minions advanced.

Captain America lay there, sprawled on the edge of a floating city, surrounded by a semicircle of Ultrobots. On his other side? Nothing. The edge. Steve supposed there was a metaphor in there, but he couldn’t be bothered to find it.

Before he could think another thought, the familiar clink of metal on pavement lit him up like a Christmas tree. _A guide from beyond_. Iron Man stood behind him and Cap could feel the sass about to pour from his lips. The contentment didn’t leave Steve at all. He couldn’t see the face behind the mask, but he knew the telltale smirk would be there as Tony said,

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

Then it was momentary awareness flooding his psyche, but Steve forced it out.  

“I understood that reference,” Cap said as he rolled onto his knees, and offered his shield in their customary ass-kicking maneuver. Iron Man shot of a repulsor blast that decimated each bot as it sliced through their hardware. Iron Man offered his hand and lifted the face plate.

“Together?” He asked. Cap nodded and grabbed Tony’s proffered hand to lift himself up.

“Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and critiques are so helpful and always appreciated!!


End file.
